Gold and sh*t

Mea Culpa Mea Culpa

Mea Culpa Mea Culpa


Centre d’artistes Axe NÉO-7.  Curator: JeanYves Vigneault.  Installations on Rouisseau de la Brasserie, urban waterway near the gallery, with artists’ developmental pieces exhibited inside.  200th anniversary of Gatineau (QC).

A critique on colonization, examining relations of Power and environmental consequences in Québec.  Spanning a timeline from France’s early explorers to the City’s bicentennial, the art speaks to the wealth and devastations of  forest barons.

Set into the manicured lawn of precious cultural site (Théâtre de l’Île), a granite slab bears a snowshoe imprint, the mark of a coureur-de-bois.   Imagine his bewilderment; standing at the water’s edge…an edge of time where he sees into into the city’s “golden future”.  Witnessing the current reality, his gaze falls upon a capsized  wooden boat, an antique craft covered in gold leaf.  Spinning slowly in the summer breeze, the boat’s golden surface catches the sun, reflecting brilliant arms of light, while floating on dark water dotted with fecal matter.  Mea Culpa Mea Culpa

Wood, Water, Wealth.
Power over, Power into, Power through
God the Father   God the Son   Land Barons.

Who hears the Earth’s Spirits?
sublime languages of ancestors’ “terre savage”
… all creatures’ voicings
massive Pines  calling Winds   clear Rivers

Coureur de Bois
blazing trails between ancient and administrated,
in servitude to Church and State
Church and State – – – buttressed by armies of Belief
silencing multiple voices of Water, Land and Air

Coureur de Bois
Snowshoes at the edge of history
citizen-explorer gazing at the Rich Man’s capsized boat.
Time collapses at the recognition of Guilt
Mea Culpa  Mea Culpa

Wood, Water, Wealth.
Power over, Power into, Power through
God the Father   God the Son   Land Barons.
Industry: new god’s voice
Mea Culpa  Mea Culpa